


Their Sanctuary

by impudent_strumpet



Category: Shoujo Kakumei Utena | Revolutionary Girl Utena
Genre: Brother-Sister Relationships, Brotherhood, Brotherly Love, Childhood, Childhood Memories, Childhood Trauma, Desire, Dialogue Light, Duelling, Dysfunctional Family, Escapism, False Memories, Family Dynamics, Family Issues, Flashbacks, High School, Idealism, Implied/Referenced Incest, Innocence, Introspection, Loss of Innocence, Memories, Mild Sexual Content, Multi, Music, Open to Interpretation, Piano, Piano Sex, Promiscuity, Reminiscing, Romance, Semi-Public Sex, Sex, Sibling Love, Siblings, Teen Romance, Twins, possible incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-22
Updated: 2017-11-22
Packaged: 2019-02-05 07:33:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12789789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impudent_strumpet/pseuds/impudent_strumpet
Summary: Another random one-shot.Miki, be nice to your sister.





	Their Sanctuary

Miki did not really see his piano playing the same way that others did.  
  
They saw it as a skill, a study to be worked at until it was perfected. Adults were so rigid and exacting, Miki had always thought. He saw it completely differently. To him, the piano had always been something immaterial, ethereal, almost magical. He had heard other instruments before, the sounds of which he could appreciate, but nothing else created the haunting, deeply emotional melody that the piano did. When Miki played, he could be at one with it, nothing to bother or stress him. The moment he sat down to play, he could rarely ever play only one note. It would all just flow out of him, as if water from a tap, then he was lost in it, swept up in the embrace of the music that surrounded him. This was for him, and him alone.  
  
Almost.  
  
His only other companion was his sister, Kozue. Miki had friends as a child, who he liked well enough, but he connected with none of them on the same level as his twin. She had such a presence, such a oneness with him whenever they played together, the music each of them produced ensconcing into such harmony, such peace and completeness. This had drawn them closer than anything else, and Miki held a special love for his twin for it.  
  
These times of paradise were theirs and theirs alone to live and breathe in, just the two of them in the garden that flourished with life, where the sun always shone. It could be summoned only by both of them when the time was right. It could not be forced.  
  
This was why Miki had fallen ill that night.  
  
He was proud of himself and his twin for how captivated their parents and others had been by their playing, but...something about it disappointed him too. The music was not for them. It was for him and Kozue. It was theirs, to be their own little sanctuary.  
  
But he knew he could not refuse when his parents had arranged a concert for them. It had pained him so, knowing there was nothing he could do but comply, knowing how much he didn't want to, how he practically couldn't bear to, how would he even be able to play it the same way when the magic wouldn't be there, it _couldn't_ be there, what would Kozue do, he was her big brother, he had to protect her, how all of this weighed on him--  
  
That was how he had fallen ill.  
  
The stress had been too much. He silently cursed himself for it. For where did this leave Kozue? He _had_ to be there for her. He wanted so badly to leap out of bed and charge onto the stage, let her know that her big brother was there and she would not be alone...but he couldn't. He was so exhausted from the illness, he could scarcely move a limb. He could not even protest when his parents forced the terrified, screaming, crying girl onstage all by herself.  
  
And she had not played. She had run off stage.  
  
That was when it was all over. She refused to play after that, even when he asked her. She never played again. Her music was gone. Their harmony, their togetherness, their sanctuary was all gone.  
  
Miki had never forgiven his parents, or himself, for this.  
  
He had tried time and time again to replicate Kozue's playing. That silvery, enchanting sound, beautiful beyond words, that he was very sure had been his first love as a child. His shining thing.  
  
But he couldn't. No matter how he tried, how he practiced, what he did. He never could.  
  
So he simply played the song, over and over again, out loud into the void, in the music room at school. He was the only one who frequented it as often as he did. It was all his then, all to himself. His little space for him alone, to take the time to exude and express. Bask in the music and let it forth. Breathe in and breathe out. It was both a part of him and with him.  
  
But as lost in it as he became, and as much as this space was his, it was not the same. It was no sunlit garden. It was a counterfeit. The music he produced was always hollow, incomplete. There was always one half missing.  
  
It was not that Miki could not find Kozue. He knew where she was. He had heard plenty of her...escapades.  
  
It was not, either, that he could not reach her. She had been here before.  
  
That he knew.  
  
The thought disgusted him, infuriated him. The thought of his little sister and whatever lover she had taken then doing _that_ on the piano, contaminating the altar, all nude bodies enmeshed and entangled, breathy sighs and moans, skin and sweat and fluids, as if making a mockery of this sacred place--  
  
He hated it. Sometimes he hated her for it. Especially when she was a constant reminder of it, at school and at home. That heavy makeup and teasing, coquettish smirk on her face, the scent of perfume as she passed, the late nights she was out...  
  
The word sprung to his mind every time. Miki could not deny that it was an apt descriptor, but he still berated himself for it, and for acknowledging it. It was a cruel word, reserved for women of the night, the lowest of the low.  
  
He tried every time to stop himself. But it always came, unbidden.  
  
He remembered, even, one time that it had flown forth from his lips, in an exasperated rage when his sister had struck him up in quarrel one of those nights. She flinched, froze in shock, as if she'd been slapped. Miki instantly regretted the word, felt filthier than any of Kozue's trysts.  
  
But the ever-present smirk of hers only returned to her lips, and she snickered under her breath before leaving, the scent of perfume in her wake.  
  
Miki was left alone, to the regret and guilt pressing on him for uttering such a hateful word, for calling his own sister such a thing. He could be harsh with her at times, in making known his disapproval for her sordid acts, but deep down he did love her. Underneath all the corruption that had built up on her, he hoped fervently that his Kozue remained.  
  
Still, he felt these hopes were likely futile. They were both thirteen, with Kozue being several minutes younger than him. So quickly had she disregarded their childhood and taken a turn for the darker, dirtier side of adulthood. His piano partner was gone, and now here was this...  
  
He put it out of his mind for the night, pretended to be asleep when she returned home later.  
  
For so long he had searched for a replacement, one to fill the position that Kozue had left. He was so sure he had found it in Anthy Himemiya's piano playing, that sweet, familiar melody...he knew he had found his shining thing the moment he heard it. So much like Kozue's it was, nearly exact. He could feel it just within his reach, so close, their sunlit garden right there with him when he and Anthy played together. That was when he resolved he would have her at all costs.  
  
In the end, he lost, and was left alone, without either of his brides. Anthy was taken, betrothed to another, and Kozue was defiled, the adulteress expelled from the home he had built for them.  
  
"Coward," she'd hissed at him then from her painted lips, just before turning away, and well and truly walking away from him.


End file.
